De La Soul – WRMS Dedication to The Bitty

De La Soul Is Dead. You love that album. Right? Of course you do, or we wouldn’t be friends. If that sounds like a threat to our friendship if you don’t like it, it’s not. It’s a promise/warning. Still here? Good.

Anyway, De La’s 2nd album was universally hated upon it’s release but has since been universally recognised as a cracking solution to 2nd album syndrome.

There are a lot of skits on this album and having been listening to hip hop for 27 years my patience with skits has been stretched into the realms of nano technology.

There is, however, one exception to the rule. Nestled in amongst the tracks of De La Soul is dead are two skits. They are both fake radio segments from the fictional WRMS station. They are both backed by the sweetest, smoothest piece of music. I bought De La Soul Is Dead on Cassette and I rewound these skits again and again. You all probably know it from 2Pacs ‘Dear Mama’ but I don’t like him and De La got there first so let’s leave it at that.

I wondered if I’d ever be able to find out where that sample had come from. I did. Now I’m going to share it with you. The sample comes from a Joe Sample (that name is begging for this kind of treatment really) song called In All My Wildest Dreams from his Rainbow Seeker album (1978 – which makes it as old as me!). It’s smooth jazz, I guess. I love it. It’s such a chilled out, laid back groove. I can listen to it again and again. I hope you feel the same way. Just promise you don’t try and use it to get you new boy/girl’s pants off. Only me and De La are allowed to use it for that!